Chamber and committees

It is still morning, so good morning, cabinet secretary. Just to get it clear in my head, I go back to the very start, where we were talking about the climate change bill and the climate change plan. Currently, legally, you have to produce a climate change plan by November, but you want to delay that and introduce a climate change bill. Am I right in thinking that, in order for it to be legal for you not to have a climate change plan by November, you would need to have a climate change bill passed before that?

Perhaps you could write to the committee on the detail of the regulation. I will leave it there, convener.

I, too, have been listening very carefully to what you have been saying, convener, and it must strike a chord with probably every single member here. I have already mentioned litter picking during the course of stage 2. I am sure that most of us will have picked litter, and I recall how, when I was doing so in a wooded area next to the East Kilbride expressway, which is a dual carriageway, I saw litter everywhere. It had to have been thrown from vehicles. Of course, some of it had not been—there were sofas deep in the woods, for example—but a lot of it must have been from vehicles and it was inaccessible to the council. You have said, convener, that somebody has got to come and clear the rubbish up; sometimes that somebody is just a volunteer, not the council, and sometimes the litter, particularly bottles, can be left for years, unless somebody comes along and picks it up.

I do not have a vote on this, but if I had, I would be strongly supporting the amendments for the reasons outlined.

When I held a members’ business debate in December on the issue of the antisocial behaviour of a minority of people using the free bus travel scheme, the Minister for Transport committed to looking at the issue and reporting back to the Parliament. That has not happened yet, but I understand that a working group has been set up. Will the minister tell us how many times the group has met, what its remit is and when we can expect to hear any progress?

It was a pleasure and, to be honest, a bit of an eye-opener for me to be involved in the inquiry into adult mental health. I, too, thank all the witnesses that the committee heard from, the committee clerks and indeed the minister for her detailed response to our report. Despite reaching new heights of Government gobbledygook, it was a good response. I also thank my fellow committee members.

The words “crisis” and “emergency” are used a lot, but there is a mental health crisis. We heard that repeatedly from various witnesses. I want to focus on three areas today—the police, a round-the-clock model of care, and the experience of people with mental health issues of getting help from their GPs. I will take those in reverse order.

The difficulty of seeing a GP and the barriers that people with a mental health issue face in doing so were a feature of our evidence sessions. I asked several witnesses about that because my view is that the system that is operated by a lot of GPs, whereby people have to explain themselves to a receptionist, may put people off. Jo Anderson of the Scottish Association for Mental Health told us:

“Graham Simpson is absolutely right.”

I do not hear that too often, but that is what she said. She continued:

“I mentioned the number of times that people have to describe their situation, and the receptionist is the first place that they have to do so.

People quite often told us ... that it is difficult to even get to sit in front of a GP.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 9 November 2023; c 5.]

Dr Chris Williams of the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland said:

“it drives frustration and negative experience. At the moment, general practice and our GP workforce face a difficult time.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 16 November 2023; c 9.]

Of course they do.

We state in our report’s conclusions:

“The Committee recognises the key role that GPs play in supporting people with their mental health. We are concerned however that having to first explain their medical symptoms to a receptionist may deter some people from approaching their GP for help. We suggest that the Scottish Government works with NHS Health Boards to develop guidance for GP practices setting out options that can be used to support people wishing to make a GP appointment for their mental health.”

The Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport’s response to that was, in my view, disappointing to say the least. She basically disagreed with it. However, we need to make seeing a GP easier and stigma free not just for those with mental health problems, but for everyone. The briefing that RCGP Scotland sent us for today’s debate says that there should be a mix of appointment types and booking methods. I urge the Government to look at that, not just for people with mental health problems but for everybody. There is an idea for the cabinet secretary.

The second area that I want to mention is a model of mental health care that is mentioned in the Auditor General’s report that exists in Trieste, Italy. Sadly—I do not blame the convener for this—we did not get to see that model at first hand. However, in Trieste, they have set up what is essentially a new way of dealing with mental health. The system operates through a network of mental health centres that operate 24 hours a day. People do not need an appointment—they can just walk in. Not only has it improved the way in which mental health is dealt with in that area, but it is also cheaper than what was there before. However, that is not why they do it—they do it because it is better.

The committee heard mixed views about the merits of the Trieste model, but we invited the Scottish Government to consider further the lessons that can be learned from it. From the minister’s response, people would think that we are already following that model, but we are not. She pointed to the Thrive model in Edinburgh and Hope Point mental health hub in Dundee as

“examples of local developments which have adopted many of the principles of the Trieste approach.”

However, if everything was as rosy as she was trying to make out, we would not have the issues that are connected with the third strand of my argument today, which is about the amount of police officer time that is being taken up in dealing with mental health issues.

It is quite clear to me from speaking to officers in my patch and hearing from our witnesses that our officers are spending far too much time—sometimes, it is the majority of their time—dealing with people with mental health problems. Indeed, Chief Constable Jo Farrell has spoken about that recently. Every year, the police respond to more than 100,000 mental health incidents, only 13 per cent of which involve a crime. On busy days, a call that is related to mental health comes in every two or three minutes.

In England, some forces are adopting a hard line and responding to mental health incidents only when a crime has been committed or where there is an immediate threat to life. Ms Farrell says that she does not want to go that far, but she argues that Police Scotland must no longer be asked to carry out the routine work of other agencies. I agree. She says that she wants her officers to stop carrying out welfare checks on people with mental health problems. My question to Ms Farrell is, if she does not want to follow the English model, exactly what she does want to do, given that her officers are reaching the point of burn-out because of the situation. Incidentally, the minister’s response to the issue was to mention a multi-agency group, whatever that is.

I say to the minister and everyone in the sector that we need action and not talking shops in order to help those who are suffering and those who are tasked with helping them.

Will the member take an intervention?

I thank the minister for taking the intervention. I am interested to hear more about that, because we need tangible action so that police officers are not spending so much time tied up with dealing with people with mental health issues. When can we expect to see that action?

Thank you. Those comments were very positive. It is that kind of discussion ahead of stage 3 that I have been trying to achieve with a number of my amendments. After all, this is a process. I will comment further on this when I sum up on the group, but the minister’s remarks have been useful and I will certainly have that discussion with her ahead of stage 3.

Ben Macpherson is a very considered member and usually makes very good points, as he has done on this occasion. I did not refer to the plastic bag charge, and Mr Macpherson is absolutely right—the main point of that charge was to reduce littering. I certainly reuse plastic bags, as I am sure that Mr Macpherson does. He is right to say that different products could be treated differently.

The minister makes a reasonable point, except that those of us who know how the affirmative or super-affirmative procedure works know that such regulations are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as something that is put in a bill.

Earlier, the minister said that the Government can go out to consultation on all of this. The problem is that there is no ability for members to change what the Government puts forward. As Douglas Lumsden said, it is either a yes or a no. That is the problem with framework bills—the use of which is increasing, as the committee said in its report.